Alumni Advantage

Why Palmer is The Trusted Leader in Chiropractic Education

Palmer College of Chiropractic was founded in Davenport, Iowa, by the discoverer of chiropractic, D.D. Palmer, in 1897, and is widely known as The founding college of the chiropractic profession. Consisting of three campuses-the main campus in Davenport, Iowa, and branch campuses in San Jose, Calif., and Port Orange, Fla., Palmer College has approximately 2,200 students attending its three campuses and more than 26,000 alumni practicing worldwide.

Since its founding in 1897, Palmer has shaped the chiropractic profession. That's not surprising when you consider that nearly a third of all chiropractors are Palmer graduates.

Palmer faculty members are typically engaged in clinical practice, so they routinely share relevant lessons from their patient-care experiences. Additionally, they are accomplished researchers; many have had papers published in prestigious professional journals and have written authoritative textbooks for chiropractic students at Palmer College and around the world. Small classes give Palmer students more access to expert faculty members. Palmer's student-to-faculty ratio is 15-to-1 or lower.

Palmer College of Chiropractic is known for providing an extensive and carefully crafted program in chiropractic technique as part of its core curriculum. A wide variety of techniques have been developed by chiropractic innovators, many of them Palmer graduates, and over the years Palmer has developed what is known throughout the profession as the “Palmer Package.” This is a group of techniques that, once mastered, provide the Palmer graduate with the technique expertise needed to deal with practically any clinical situation that may emerge in practice.

By the time Palmer students receive their Doctor of Chiropractic degree, they've completed more than three years of graduate studies and clinical training that encompass the science, philosophy and art (technique) of chiropractic. In fact, the number of hours Palmer students spend in courses such as anatomy, physiology, diagnosis and neurology are comparable to the hours medical school students spend in similar courses.

Palmer Successes

The Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research (PCCR) is the largest institutional chiropractic research effort in the world, including research efforts on all three Palmer campuses.

The PCCR has the largest budget for research in a chiropractic college, supplemented increasingly by grants from outside sources such as the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, which total more than $35 million since 2000.

The PCCR, the RAND Corporation and the Samueli Institute received a $7.4 million grant from the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. This landmark study is the largest single award for a chiropractic research project in the history of the profession and is being used to conduct the largest clinical trial evaluating chiropractic to date.

The American Chiropractic Association and the International Chiropractic Association have given Palmer graduates, faculty and administration prestigious awards multiple times, including Chiropractor of the Year and Academic of the Year.

The educational capstone at Palmer College of Chiropractic includes the Palmer Chiropractic Clinics that model and provide evidence-informed chiropractic health care while integrating patient values and clinical experience, giving students hands-on experience within the curriculum.

Palmer has academic affiliations with 17 Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs facilities throughout the country, which provide internship opportunities for students from all three campuses.

Each Palmer campus provides a unique global health care service through the Clinic Abroad Program, delivering pro bono chiropractic care to over 26,000 patients in need worldwide each year.

Palmer faculty set the bar for scholarly presentations at the annual Association of Chiropractic Colleges-Research Agenda Conference (ACC-RAC) event, contributing more than double that of any other chiropractic college represented.